Ukantor's new uke

etkre

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I'm uploading some pics for John Colter. He recently completed his "Pulga Pouco" ukulele. Check out that headstock!

It's finally finished, and I love it! I strung it up initially, before applying any finish, just in case it needed any modifications. I wasn't totally sure the unusual "vertical peg-head with zero fret and no nut" arrangement would work, but it does - perfectly. The scale length at 320mm is somewhere between sopranino and soprano. I expected it to require higher tuning than a soprano, but gCEA suits it well. It sounds lovely, with plenty of volume and loads of sustain. The neck goes through the body, and so the internal block is integral with the neck. At the bridge, the strings go through the front, and knot on the inside (a la Sven, the Argapa maker). The grain of the mahogany bridge is vertical (perpendicular to the plane of the front). I reasoned that it might be better for transference of vibration to the sound board. The sound board is a nice piece of spruce provided by Tin Guitar man Rob C. (thanks mate!). The body is made of wood salvaged from a pine box which once held six bottles of port wine. The neck is mahogany, and used to be a bed leg. I call the uke a Pulga Pouco, which I believe is Portuguese for little flea. The odd scale length I refer to (rightly or wrongly) as sopranetto.

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i have never seen a headstock like that.
 
Now I can see why you got the "Picasso" comments, John. Absolutely bizarre headstock...but I love it! Hope to hear it in action soon.
 
Wow. That is awesome. It looks like there was a lot of stuff to work through in that design. Incredible accomplishment. more pics?
 
jealous!!!
 
That is on very nice looking uke. :drool:
 
Beautiful. Love the headstock.
 
Holy balls! What a neat uke! lol I hope you dont mind if I steal the vertical headstock idea someday. Just too cool.
 
Thank you all for the positive comments. It was a blast designing and building this thing. The vertical headstock is not totally original. I've seen it before, somewhere (Kamaka; Swaggerty?), and made a mental note to try it. I think the use of a zero fret and no nut MIGHT be quite unusual.

I love playing it, and every time I look at it, I smile. That MUST be a good thing.

John Colter.
 
Love that uke, John. Really really cool.
 
Everything about that looks like those 1950s images of what the year 2000 might look like.




By which I mean I love it.
 
dude thats a piece of art!!! havent seen an ukulele this mindblowing since I saw Owen Holt's mana
 
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